Lather me with blather -- DRAFT thread 4

[sfam]

Just saw Ted at Penn Station in NY getting ready to go back to DC. Was there any workouts in NY today?

[fishercob]

Personally, I've already divorced myself from the idea that we'll find a difference maker at No. 6, and as such, I'd have no problem drafting a player whose ultimate upside is solid starter or added depth on a roster that's severely lacking in that department.

The theme of this draft imho has to be culture change. We have too many knuckleheads and jokesters, and not enough workers and no-nonsense type characters on this squad.

First and foremost I want guys on this team that care more about winning and improving then looking cool on Sportscenter highlights and winning at Twitter followers.

Agreed, and this is why the recent negative buzz around Kanter doesn't bother me. If he slides to 6 for justifiable reasons -- i.e. that he's never going to be an All-Star -- I still think he'll help and provide things we don't have. If a bigger Scola or smarter Drew Gooden is his ceiling, then maybe Tyler Hansbrough or Jeff Foster is his floor. Those are still guys I want on my team.

[tontoz]

7 day dray..... Wow. That is a lot to chew on. It certainly seems like the Wizards would be an ideal trade partner for both teams.

I guess the bottom line for the Wizards is whether or not Kanter is worth trading up for.

[W. Unseld]

It sounds like there are some sober voices on the thread. Whenever I find myself getting lottery fever ie everyone has all-star potential, I look at the old nba draft history:
http://www.nbadraft.net/nba_draft_history/2006.html

Speaking of which, I like the above link but I'd love one that tells you where they are now. This only links to their draft profile. I get my Brewers and Williams etc. confused b/c there are/were so many of them.

[queridiculo]

Thanks for scaring the **** out of me Wes. That is just pitiful.

What makes this even scarier is the fact that Grunfeld had a chance to draft Millsap and Marc Gasol in back to back years, and ended up with Pecherov and McGuire...

[popper]

I'm stating the obvious when I say that the decision to trade up or down is driven by the perceived value of assets received vs. assets forfeited. I'm sure EG will be assessing both options all the way up to the last minute. My analyses (flawed as it may be) is that trading down will probably be the best path because the difference between #6 and #9 through #15 appears marginal. Trading up for a DW or EK could be a very costly mistake unless the target becomes a superstar. Why take that risk when you can get two or more solid players in a trade down scenario with very little risk.

[LyricalRico]

found this interesting...

Two teams actively trying to trade down are the Utah Jazz and Cleveland Cavaliers, according to sources. The Cavs have been telling agents they are actively trying to acquire a draft pick in the 10-19 range, which is why certain player with no chance of being picked in the top four are coming to Cleveland for workouts. The No. 1 and No. 4 picks are the Cavs' only first round picks. This would certainly be an option if they believe Derrick Williams and Enes Kanter will both be gone in the top three picks. The Jazz are exploring every option, especially trading down from the No. 3 pick.

http://www.thehoopsreport.com/article.aspx?id=741

Hmmm...if Cleveland is trying to get a mid-first, they don't necessarily have to trade down to do it. They could simply buy a pick or do a BOYD deal for one.

The article also said that Utah is trying to put together a workout with Walker, Knight, and Fredette - presumably to see who they want and then trade down accordingly. As long as Toronto doesn't want the same guy, they could conceivably be willing to trade down to 6.

Maybe combine those two thoughts into a 3-way?

Wiz out: 6+18
Wiz in: 3

Jazz out: 3+12+Okur+Bell
Jazz get: 6+18+TPE

Cavs trade: TPE
Cavs get: 12 and contracts of Okur+Bell

(I guess it's not really a 3-way, but it makes more sense to look at it that way IMO.)

Cleveland potentially comes away in this draft with Irving/Valanciunas/Morris, Utah gets under the luxury tax this year and trims salary to prepare for a hard cap while still getting the guard they want, and the Wiz move into position to get either Kanter or Williams.

[dobrojim]

Give up the premise that there will be one player that can "Stop" arguably the best player in the world. If the best defenders in the league cannot do it then why would a soon to be drafted rookie be able to do it. Its best to build a defensive team atmosphere which obviously requires defensive minded players but drafting a guy on the principle that he will "Stop" a guy on a team that you play 4 times and year and happens to be arguably the best in the league is a reach.

OK. I overstated my expectation on a yet to be drafted rookie.

But Singleton certainly is being advertised as fitting your concept
of building team defensive atmosphere. We and every other team
in the league could use a guy to come in and slow down the
other team's best player whether it's LeTrav, Melo or whoever.
And if Singleton does turn out to have some defensive versatility
so it's not just SFs he can guard, all the better.

[WizarDynasty]

Enes is definitely not a star, just a very good change of pace big offensively. He definitety doesn't upgrade us defensively, but mainly stabilizes our bench. He is definitely not a corner stone for a team. He isn't going be a game changer for most teams. I see him a slightly above average post player, below average defender, above average defensive rebounder. Basically a poor man's Kaman because he isn't as big as Kaman. He dominated at Nike Hoops but not one of those players were even close to what he would see as a stater in the nba.
He fits the wizards because we already have starting caliber bigman and we desperately need a big to cut down their minutes while giving us a new offensive wrinkle in the post against opposing bench bigs. in order for our current bigs to play at their optimal level. Again, Kanter as an overall player is not better than our current starting bigs but he has better post skills and sures up our defensive rebounding off the bench because we can't rely on Booker or Seraphin to gives us quality minutes unless they are playing against similiar undersized players for booker or raw offensive players in the case of seraphin.
Its hard to find offensive post men in free agency. Kanter is not a dominant post player but he is better than what we have. i think its worth giving up huge assets when you get a dominant post players which Kanter isn't.
I think Kanter gives us a nice wrinkle off the bench and even finding high quality bench post players with above average rebounding is very hard to find in free agency.
I honestly think Kanter is quite soft but shows alot of energy going after rebounds. He dominates against other soft bigs but is quite passive against athletic physically dominating bigmen.
As teams really start to grind down, they began to take a deeper look at him and realize that he isn't going to improve their defense and he isn't a 1st or second option offensively.
He fits for the wizards because we have our starters in place and we just happen to have low energy starters and adding his energy for rebounding and his not being a liability on offense is a huge boost off the bench. Washington has a unique history when it comes to bigman. We almost have never had a quality big come off the bench where as most teams don't see this as a big deal. Most teams have a taj gibson type player coming off the bench. We have always had low iq or high iq non athletic bigs. Just seems to be the history of washington. I think Blatche and McGee have finally both reached starter level of IQ and that was just toward the end of last season and John Wall was huge reason for that. jamison, Laetner, Haywood, E. Thomas, M.Ruffin, Songalia, booker, seraphin.the list goes on and on. We have never had a post threat coming off the bench to run with the second unit and this team has historically been poor at identifying undervalued bigmen with post potential to come off the bench.
We may have to use the 6th overall pick...or even try and move to get one or we realize that Tyler and 3 and D is the most effective path for the future.
Kanter is not an allstar, but based on the unique history of the wizards he or Tyler after one season solidifies a front court that has never had a close to starting quality bigman coming off the bench for at least 20 years maybe even longer. That's a pretty long time.
the wizards need a close to starting caliber bigman coming off the bench. Most teams have this and picked undervalued players in their draft to fulfill this role. McGee and Blatche form our core-- we tried with seraphin and booker but neither is close to starting quality bigman and that's what we need coming off the bench to solidify this team. A player with advanced post skills would be a huge plus but just close to starting quality...aka 6th man--who is a post player. Kanter fills that quality and tyler would after playing for one season under Saunders and Wall and I see him fitting in quite nicely and his learning curve would be alot quicker here than elsewhere since we have successfully boosted the basketball iq of raw english speaking young bigmen with blatche and mcgee into starting quality bigmen. Not many other franchises have that on their resumes.

[JonathanJoseph]

It sounds like there are some sober voices on the thread. Whenever I find myself getting lottery fever ie everyone has all-star potential, I look at the old nba draft history:
http://www.nbadraft.net/nba_draft_history/2006.html

Speaking of which, I like the above link but I'd love one that tells you where they are now. This only links to their draft profile. I get my Brewers and Williams etc. confused b/c there are/were so many of them.

This is where I'm coming from when I don't get all this talk about trading real assets to move up in a weak draft.

[7-Day Dray]

found this interesting...

Two teams actively trying to trade down are the Utah Jazz and Cleveland Cavaliers, according to sources. The Cavs have been telling agents they are actively trying to acquire a draft pick in the 10-19 range, which is why certain player with no chance of being picked in the top four are coming to Cleveland for workouts. The No. 1 and No. 4 picks are the Cavs' only first round picks. This would certainly be an option if they believe Derrick Williams and Enes Kanter will both be gone in the top three picks. The Jazz are exploring every option, especially trading down from the No. 3 pick.

http://www.thehoopsreport.com/article.aspx?id=741

Hmmm...if Cleveland is trying to get a mid-first, they don't necessarily have to trade down to do it. They could simply buy a pick or do a BOYD deal for one.

The article also said that Utah is trying to put together a workout with Walker, Knight, and Fredette - presumably to see who they want and then trade down accordingly. As long as Toronto doesn't want the same guy, they could conceivably be willing to trade down to 6.

Maybe combine those two thoughts into a 3-way?

Wiz out: 6+18
Wiz in: 3

Jazz out: 3+12+Okur+Bell
Jazz get: 6+18+TPE

Cavs trade: TPE
Cavs get: 12 and contracts of Okur+Bell

(I guess it's not really a 3-way, but it makes more sense to look at it that way IMO.)

Cleveland potentially comes away in this draft with Irving/Valanciunas/Morris, Utah gets under the luxury tax this year and trims salary to prepare for a hard cap while still getting the guard they want, and the Wiz move into position to get either Kanter or Williams.

This is a good trade for all parties involved Rico! And since we would be trading our #18 pick, I think we could deal for another pick. Minnesota's pick is the most likely, at #20. It's probably going to be up for sale on draft night, so we could buy it for $3 million.

[tontoz]

I'm stating the obvious when I say that the decision to trade up or down is driven by the perceived value of assets received vs. assets forfeited. I'm sure EG will be assessing both options all the way up to the last minute. My analyses (flawed as it may be) is that trading down will probably be the best path because the difference between #6 and #9 through #15 appears marginal. Trading up for a DW or EK could be a very costly mistake unless the target becomes a superstar. Why take that risk when you can get two or more solid players in a trade down scenario with very little risk.

That analysis would make sense in the NFL when you have so many roster spots to fill. The NBA is different because there are so few roster spots. Title contenders are built around stars, not solid players. A roster full of solid players will have you mired in mediocrity.

You seem to be pretty selective in your risk assessment. There is also the risk that trading down will lead to drafting players who suck. Just look at the link posted above about the 2006 draft. Every year there are guys picked in the middle of the first round that teams have high hopes for only to see those players turn into busts. That could easily happen here.

In the NBA the old adage is that the team that got the best player wins the trade. It's about quality, not quantity. I can't think of too many recent examples where a team benefited from trading down on draft night. But i can definitely think of some examples (Deron, LMA, Roy) where team's benefited big time from trading up.

[thinker07]

I can't see the Wiz being satisfied coming out of this draft with just Kanter (if there were a trade of #6 and #18 to move up) unless as suggested above they purchase another 1st rounder. As much as we need more post offense and rebounds - we need a shooting wing to pair up with Wall even more. Even moreso when we aren't guaranteed to be getting NY back. As bad as we were defensively and rebounding wise last year - we were even worse offensively and shooting wise. If we were only going to get one player, then I think the only guy that would be a satisfactory player would be DWill. Otherwise I am convinced that come hell or high water the Wiz will end up with one of the wings - Hamilton, Harris, Thompson, Marcus M, Singleton, Burks, Brooks, Leonard.

[tontoz]

I can't see the Wiz being satisfied coming out of this draft with just Kanter (if there were a trade of #6 and #18 to move up) unless as suggested above they purchase another 1st rounder. As much as we need more post offense and rebounds - we need a shooting wing to pair up with Wall even more. Even moreso when we aren't guaranteed to be getting NY back. As bad as we were defensively and rebounding wise last year - we were even worse offensively and shooting wise. If we were only going to get one player, then I think the only guy that would be a satisfactory player would be DWill. Otherwise I am convinced that come hell or high water the Wiz will end up with one of the wings - Hamilton, Harris, Thompson, Marcus M, Singleton, Burks, Brooks, Leonard.

I agree that the only guy who seems worth trading up for is Williams. If they can't pull that off then i would just stay at 6 and see if Kanter falls to them which is possible. I would be reluctant to trade up for him.

If they stay at 6 and can't get Kanter or JV then i would go with Marcus. I think Kemba would be a mistake. I don't see adding an undersized, ball dominant pg that struggles to shoot from the perimeter. Not only do i doubt that he could play effectively with Wall but i also think it could adversely effect Wall's development.

Also +1 on the glaring need for shooting.

[WizarDynasty]

Marcus Morris is basically a smaller blatche and has the same athletic problems. Basically a jumpshooting undersized Blatche. Both have small hands, don't get any elevation on their jumper, and struggle just to dunk the ball. Blatche can at least match up with finese bigs defensive and can defensive rebound if he doesn't have to play heavy minutes but Morris is basically jumpshooting undersized p/f. If he were coming off the bench, i would be fine with him as a having an offense spark but he isn't going to have a size advantage in the nba and his jumper and post moves will be easy to defend for the average nba starting small forward. If Morris was at least explosive and powerful as well as have the ability to finish in the paint with authority despite not having an explosive step, height on his jumper ect...ect then i would over look the fact that he adds nothing for us defensively as a starting small forward or coming off the bench.
A 3 and D small forward and a post threat/ defensive rebounding big are the wizards biggest needs. We thought Booker could play small forward..big mistake. We thought Seraphin might be a bit more polished and have higher offensive and defensive awareness, or just be absolute monster on the boards and shot blocking. A no to that as well.
Singleton, Kanter, Tyler, or plug in a your three and defense small forward or your post offense/defensive rebounding big.

[dobrojim]

I wonder when DX is going to start factoring in team needs to their
mock. Right now they have Faried going to Minn. That would seem
to be a superfluous move considering they already have Love.

[pcbothwel]

Frankly, the best guess is that the Wizards secretly like Valanciunas. He's the one guy we've heard nothing about.

That's almost worst-case IMO. Not because I don't think the guy has upside, but becuase he's the only guy where there is absolutely zero chance of him being able to play alongside McGee (I have doubts about Kanter being able to play with McGee, but at least there's a chance). So you are adding yet another young center to a roster that already includes McGee and Seraphin.

Hey, if they think he can be better than McGee and they will then trade JaVale, I have no problem with that. But to take a center so high and also keep McGee (which I assume is what most would want in that scenario0 is a bad idea IMO.

I agree that JV and McGee playing together would be tough to watch offensively. But when you look at all the elite teams(Mavs:Chandler/Brendan, OKC:Ibaka/Perkins/Collison, LAL: Bynum/Gasol, CHI: Noah/Boozer) you see the need for a key bigman. I ask, What if McGee doesnt take that step foward in his contract year (and probably a shortened one) to prove he is a foundation piece? Where do we get our 5? I dont see any to draft next year and elite bigs never make it to FA?

If you take JV at 6 and let him stay oversees for 1 year you'll see his game only mature further as his body develops and he stays in the same level of competition. stay at 18 and take the best wing EG likes out of Hamilton, Harris, Singleton, Thompson, etc.

[LyricalRico]

^ I would agree with you...IF...there were no other holes on this team. But this team has so many needs that I don't want a lottery pick sitting overseas just in case we need him.

[Ruzious]

Thanks for scaring the **** out of me Wes. That is just pitiful.

What makes this even scarier is the fact that Grunfeld had a chance to draft Millsap and Marc Gasol in back to back years, and ended up with Pecherov and McGuire...

...and he could have had Quincy Douby. Fact is - nobody wanted Marc Gasol, because he looked more like a fat Italian chef than a basketball player back then. And nobody in the world except CCJ thought Millsap was worth a 1st.

[nate33]

Thanks for scaring the **** out of me Wes. That is just pitiful.

What makes this even scarier is the fact that Grunfeld had a chance to draft Millsap and Marc Gasol in back to back years, and ended up with Pecherov and McGuire...

It really bugs me when people look at it this way. Yes, EG missed on Millsap. But so did the next 28 GMs in the draft. Millsap went on the 47th pick.

Every draft has one or two surprise picks in the 2nd round. If you're going to bash EG for missing on them, you need to bash every other GM in the league as well.